X Marks the Future
by ElfieWrites
Summary: Futurama meets X-Men: Evolution. The Planet Express crew winds up stuck in the past, in Bayville. A work in progress.
1. Part 1: Impact

He felt as if he was melting. No, evaporating up into a gaseous substance that hovered above his relaxed body, and reality. It was the most delicious sensation he could fathom, this disconnection of mind from body. He felt, from a great, yawning distance, a sigh escape his lips. In this place so devoid of a recognition of time, it felt as though he could stay forever free from sensation and stress.

Forever was abruptly shortened by a slap to his body's arm, and an annoyed female voice crying out, "Wake up, Fry!"

As his consciousness slammed awkwardly back into place within his body's confines, the red-head's arms and legs flailed wildly, unwittingly hitting buttons, knobs, and levers within his reach on the control panel before him. As an echo to his wild contortions, the green ship jerked and twisted in its course through space.

Fry abruptly fell from his perch in the chair to the floor of the bridge with a loud thump that finally cleared his senses. He sat up again and scowled at Leela. The purple-haired woman was frantically working at the control panel, in an effort to set the ship's course to rights.

"I hope that fall hurt you. You've screwed up the ship!" she was saying over her shoulder.

"Well, you shouldn't have woken me up," he replied. When she spared a moment to glare down viciously at him, he flinched and realized he would have been wiser to keep his mouth shut. Her one eye always managed to look more murderous than any other creature's full set could have accomplished.

The door behind him opened and he turned to see Bender walk into the bridge. "What the hell's going on up here, meatbags?" the robot loudly demanded.

"Your idiot roommate messed up the ship's course and now we're headed straight into that black hole." The panic was clear in Leela's voice.

"Well, isn't there anything you can do?"

"I'm trying! But it doesn't seem to be working...."

"Huh, well, dinner's ready in five minutes. See ya then." With that, Bender turned and left.

Fry finally stood up and stood behind Leela, but well out of her arm's reach. "So, uh, are we going to die?" he asked quietly.

"I don't know. Not if I can help it, though."

He smiled slightly to himself. If anyone could save them, it would be Leela. She had done it so many times before. But as the black hole quickly filled the view from the windows, he wondered if, this time, even she wouldn't be enough to stand between them and death.

His breath caught in his throat and dread welled up in his soul when she turned away from the panel, defeat written plainly across her features. He stepped forward to take her hands in his. "I'm so sorry, Leela. I know it's not any good to say it, but I really am." He hoped the guilt he felt conveyed strongly enough. All he had wanted was a nap, a moment of peace. Fry had never, ever imagined it would lead to not only his death, but that of his best friends as well. Leela certainly was too wonderful to die because of his stupid mistake.

She looked sadly up at him and then stepped forward to share an embrace. They held each other as they felt their lives fall away from them.

-----

Scott reached up to wipe sweat away from where it threatened to slip under his sunglasses and into his eyes. He was certainly working up a lot of the warm liquid in daring to play a game of soccer against a team that featured Jean Grey. He smiled fondly at the auburn-haired woman who was high-fiving Kitty. He was filled with an immense pride for her, even if she was kicking his ass.

It was only by chance that he saw it at all. He had, on a whim, looked at the late afternoon sun to determine approximately what time it was, rather than just asking Kurt to check his holowatch. But his stray glance in that direction allowed him to see the bright object falling out of the sky, down into the distant forested lands beyond the Institute. He would have been amazed enough to see a meteor falling. That wasn't an everyday occurrence. But Scott knew enough about astronomy to know that meteors generally weren't metallic and green and shaped ... well, he wasn't sure about the shape but it certainly looked engineered, not natural at all.

He felt a tug on his arm and looked down into Kurt's concerned yellow eyes.

"What is the matter, Scott?" he asked softly, his German accent thicker with worry.

Scott only jerked his head in the direction of the plummeting craft. Kurt followed his gaze and gasped. Well, that confirmed that his glasses weren't playing tricks on him.

"But ... what is it?"

"I don't know, Kurt."

"I'll go get the Professor." With a familiar BAMF sound and a small puff of brimstone-scented fog, he vanished.

Kurt's sudden disappearance caught the attention of most of the other players on the field. Scott turned to them and announced, "I think it's time to go inside."


	2. Part 2: Greetings

Fry's journey back to his own body was much slower and more painful than the last time. But that peacefulness he had briefly experienced seemed an eternity ago. It was difficult to remember a time when his whole being, inside and out, didn't ache and throb painfully.

He became aware of the way his cheek was mashed against the cool metal of the ship's floor. The rest of his body was sprawled out in an uncomfortable position. One hand was resting on Leela's shoulder. Her face was turned away from him. He could taste the metallic glint of blood in his mouth. It was agony to move even his tongue around, but a careful probing revealed that all he had done was bitten the inside of his cheek. All teeth were firmly set in their rightful places. He couldn't hear anything. No, there was the faint creak of the ship settling, of metal shifting slightly. But he couldn't hear or feel the usual hum of the engines. That meant they weren't flying any longer.

As much as it tortured him, as tempted as he was just to sink back into oblivion, he began moving parts of his body, checking to see that nothing was seriously injured. He began with the hand that rested on Leela. Each movement brought a new blossom of pain, but he began to realize it was just bruises. Nothing felt broken.

Eventually he was able to lift himself into a sitting position. Leela still hadn't so much as twitched, and that worried him. He shifted to a position where he could see her face, and reached out to gently shake her arm. It took what seemed like an eternity full of anxiety, but finally her expression contorted into a grimace and she groaned. He reached up to push her bangs away from where they stuck to her face, and her eye opened halfway. He still felt too weak to speak, so he simply smiled at her. He watched for awhile as she, too, slowly reclaimed the confines of her body and checked it for damage. He then worked on lifting himself unsteadily to his feet. He needed to find out what fate had befallen his robot friend.

Leela watched from the floor as Fry staggered away. As often as it seemed they teetered on the brink of death, they always managed somehow to survive. She just wondered what crazy situation Fry had landed them in this time. Then she set that thought aside to wonder whether her twisted and unresponsive legs were simply asleep or more seriously injured.

-----

When, a while later, Fry returned with Bender in tow, she was pacing around the small room, looking outside. All she had seen so far was a thick forest of green trees. It seemed the ship had knocked over a few, creating a small clearing for itself. She turned away from the sight to greet her friends.

"I found him still in the kitchen; he needed to be restarted," Fry wisely pitched his voice low. She imagined he shared the same raging headache that pounded against the inside of her forehead. "Here, I brought you water. I couldn't find the first-aid kit."

She really would have preferred painkiller, but she accepted the water gratefully.

"So where are we?" She and Fry both winced at Bender's voice. Didn't the damned thing have a quiet chip she could permanently activate?

"I have no idea," she admitted, as Fry moved past her to look out the window. She was considering going to find that first-aid kit, when she was distracted by Fry's loud gasp. She turned to look out the window herself and started at the sight.

A large creature had emerged from the trees. He was heavily muscled and coated in a thick blue-colored fur. She was reminded of some long-extinct Earth animal. What was it? Ah, yes, the gorilla. It looked much like a gorilla, only it looked up at them with an all-too-human gaze. And wasn't it wearing—

Fry screamed "There's more!" softly and threw himself into her arms, Scooby Doo style. She caught him with a gasp and he buried his face against her shoulder. She gritted her teeth against the sudden weight she was forced to endure, but continued staring out the window. A smaller, slighter blue creature had appeared at the first's side. This one lashed a long spaded tail behind it and sported an odd black-and-red suit. More shapes were becoming visible through the trees, moving towards the ship.

To her left, Bender reached into his chest compartment and pulled out a small lampshade. He placed it on his head and announced, "They'll never find me now. Heh heh heh."

Leela abruptly dropped Fry on the floor, partly because the strength in her arms was beginning to give out and partly because she was just sick of humoring his childishness.

By now the group at the edge of the forest had ballooned. All the others were plainly human, but all looked ready to face trouble, faces set with a determination that they could beat it too. The only difference was the expression of an older man, confined to an outdated wheelchair. Some of the others surrounded him in an obviously protective ring. He must have been the leader of the group, which she noted. He would be the man to approach, she decided. And now would be as good a time as any. Well, a time when she was free of the aching in her body and the pounding in her head would be better. She hoped she would still be capable of fighting if it came down to a need for it.

She looked down at Fry, who was huddled under the control panel.

"Are they still out there?" he asked.

"Yes. And I'm going to go out to speak to them," she stated.

"You can't be serious!"

"I am. What else do you suggest we do? Do you think we could hide forever in this ship?"

"Yes?"

"No. Now I suggest you stay here until I'm finished. There's no need for you to go messing things up any worse than they already are by saying something stupid."

With that, she strode resolutely to the door leading outside and pushed a button that lowered the stairway that would lead her down to the ground, into the midst of the strange group. She took a deep breath to calm herself and then stepped out into the sunlit afternoon.

The group shifted away from peering up into the window of the ship to watch her. They all tensed, leaning deeper into wary fighting stances. Leela tried to put on her best show of confidence. She wanted to look unthreatening, but not weak or afraid. She hoped neither her anxiety nor her pain showed through, as her foot finally touched the ground. She decided it would be best not to step much further forward. She didn't want to look too aggressive, plus she thought it would be better to have a clear path to flee back up into the ship if necessary, instead of having to fight her way to it through a ring of foes.

She stopped a few feet from the base of the stairway, turned towards the crowd, and raised her voice to state, "My name is Leela, and I am captain of the Planet Express ship. We mean you no harm; in fact, we'll be on our way just as soon as we can fix our ship and figure out where we are." She looked squarely into the eyes of the old man in the wheelchair. His face remained neutral as he stared, for a moment, back at her. She winced inwardly as her headache seemed to flare for a moment.

Finally, he spoke. "Miss Leela, I understand your predicament and I recognize your pure intentions. My name is Charles Xavier, and I extend to you, and any companions you may have, my hospitality, to stay at my institute as guests. I would like to learn more about you and why you are here, and I offer you any help we may be able to give in fixing your ship and getting you home."

The others look surprised at his words, and some looked worried or angered, especially a muscular masked man to this Xavier's left, who wore a ridiculous black and orange costume and seemed to have blades clenched in his fist, extending out past his knuckles. Even if Xavier seemed friendly, the fierce look of the man told her that she ought to tread carefully in this unfamiliar territory. But she couldn't think of many other options than to take up the offer and see what happened.

"I accept your offer, and thank you. Now if you'll allow me a moment to find the rest of my crew." Xavier nodded once in assent.

Back on the ship, Fry was still curled up on the floor. Bender was still an impromptu lamp.

"I know you two heard all that was said. So are you ready to go?"

Fry stood up and asked, "But what if you're leading us into death?"

"Oh, it's not like you haven't already tried doing that to us today already," Leela snapped.

"Oh. Yeah." He looked down sheepishly.

"What about you, Bender? Are you coming, or are you too scared?"

Bender plucked off the lampshade and threw it to the floor. "Bender ain't afraid of nothin' or nobody."

"All right then."

After she had turned around, Bender paused for only a moment before he bent down to pick up the shade and stuff it back into his chest compartment, then hurried after his friends.

-----

The walk through the forest felt long and strained. The foreign group had formed a protective ring around the Planet Express crew to escort them behind Charles Xavier to this Institute he mentioned. Curiosity about the crew was plain in the eyes of the younger members of the group, who seemed to be teenagers. The smaller blue fuzzy thing seemed most inquisitive, Leela noticed. But they all seemed most amazed by Bender. Perhaps they had never seen such a robot before. It seemed that way, judging by how primitive this planet seemed. She wondered just where they had landed. It was a planet she couldn't remember seeing before. The two blue creatures were totally unfamiliar to her, and she thought she knew where most humans had colonized.

Not many words had been said since that brief talk when she had first stepped off of the ship. But she saw the wiry blue creature scoot closer to Fry, who was walking ahead of her.

"Pardon me, sir, but may I ask what your name is, and that of your robot friend? My name is Kurt." the creature said. Leela noticed he had a strong accent that she vaguely recognized. It was something from Earth. Maybe Old Europe. Some people still learned their traditional languages young and had such an accent. But she couldn't be sure....

Fry looked down at him. "Of course. My name's Fry, and that's Bender. It's nice to meet you Kurt. I notice you sound like you're from Germany. Is that where we are now?"

Ah. That was what she had been trying to think of.

"It is a pleasure to meet you as well. Yes, I am from Germany. But right now, we are in the state of New York."

Leela's eye widened in surprise. That couldn't be possible. There wasn't a single area of New York state left forested. The entire state had, by her time, been covered in the sprawling reaches of New New York City. Something really wasn't right here, and she felt the anxiety in the pit of her stomach returning with a vengeance. She hoped this Institute wasn't too much further away, since it was high time she had a talk with Xavier. She hoped she wasn't walking into some trap.

"Oh cool," Fry was saying. "I live there!"

"But you fly in that spaceship," Kurt said.

"We will find answers to many questions about our visitors, in time," Xavier's voice came floating back to them. "But for now, we will let our guests settle down from what must have been an interesting journey, before we pressure them for answers."

Kurt ducked his head and distanced himself a bit from Fry.

Shortly, the trees thinned to reveal a large, old-fashioned mansion. Leela became increasingly nervous as they approached, and then entered, the Institute. Once inside, Xavier turned to the ship's crew.

"Welcome to the Xavier Institute. I hope you find your short stay here pleasant. Later we will talk about what brings you here, and after that I hope to help you in repairing your strange ship. First however, we will make arrangements to accommodate you here. Please let me know if you need or desire anything. Jean, Scott, please show our guests to some rooms."

A tall red-headed woman stepped forward and gestured to Leela to follow her. Leela cast a glance back at Fry and Bender, who were being approached by an even taller man who wore a strange red band over his eyes. Then she turned and cautiously followed Jean up the magnificent flight of stairs.


	3. Part 3: Conference

Author's Note: Not much really happens in this chapter; it centers around talking, really. I apologize for the lack of real action. The next part should have some, whenever I get around to editing it and polishing it for uploading. However, I'm not exactly sure when that'll be, due to my recent plunge into the lifestyle of a college student. But when I have the free time, of course, I'll work on finishing this story. =)

-----

"You know, it's a good thing I only ever have the clothes on my back," Fry was saying, "because what if I ever wanted to use a closet for storage?"

Bender peeked out of their new room's closet to put on his robotic pretext of a scowl. "You just try putting your crap in my room, skintube. While you're at it, throw your wallet and some booze in too."

Scott had shown them to a room with two beds, unsure about what an intelligent robot's sleeping preferences might be, or even if one slept at all. He had still been too wary around the strangers to bother speaking any more than absolutely necessary, let alone ask questions of a surly machine.

That had been nearly an hour ago. Now Fry sprawled on one of the beds, hands behind his head, while Bender poked around in the closet. He casually plucked out the wooden bar meant to hang clothes hangers upon and tossed it out the window.

At their knocking, Fry got up to open the door on Leela and Jean.

"Hey Fry. Jean says now we're to go downstairs and speak to this Professor Xavier."

"Okay. But I think our guy forgot to show us the bathroom."

Behind Leela, Jean rolled her eyes and made a mental note to speak to Scott later. "I believe, in the boys' wing, it's at the end of the hallway to your right," she spoke up, pointing.

"Ah, thanks."

After waiting long enough for Fry to take care of business at the end of the hall, the group went back downstairs. Jean led them to Xavier's large study, where enough chairs had been brought in to accommodate both the X-Men and the guests. The rest of the team was already seated, waiting for them. Each had a plate of food, and four other plates rested on the low central table. Kurt was sprawled across the couch, but at the sight of them suddenly 'ported to an empty chair.

Fry gasped. Leela and Bender had both been looking around at the room itself, but he had seen the activity in the center. He pointed at Kurt. "What was that he just did?"

Xavier spoke up. "That is part of what we are here to discuss with you, Mr. Fry. If you would all have a seat, Ororo has prepared us a wonderful dinner." He gestured to a dark woman with sparkling white hair to his right. After the Planet Express crew and Jean had selected a plate and seated themselves, he continued. "The reason we are eating here is because there are other students here at my Institute, but I thought it would be best to keep what information is revealed tonight among my most trusted, and the smallest group necessary. I find this room a bit more comfortable anyway." He smiled.

Leela took advantage of the pause. "Before we begin, may I ask what date today is, Mister Xavier?"

"Certainly. But, please, call me Charles. Today is May 23rd, 2003."

Leela took a moment to remember how to breathe. She wondered to herself just how much she could reveal to these people.

Fry elbowed her in the ribs gently. "Hey Leela, you ever notice how time jumps are conveniently a thousand years, or at least back to my time? If I wanted to, I could go visit my family and see how they've been doing the past couple of years."

"No, Fry. You're not going anywhere near your family. I won't allow any more chances for you to inbreed." She looked up at all the faces staring at them and sighed. "As Fry so tactfully brought up, we are from your future, or at least an alternate universe set in the future. To be honest, I don't know which. We got sucked into a black hole while returning from a delivery and wound up here. I didn't even know black holes could allow you to travel back in time. I always thought they just killed you."

There was a long silence that Xavier eventually broke. "Well, that makes our situation much more delicate, doesn't it?"

Leela nodded glumly.

There was another silence, this time broken by Kurt. He pointed to the untouched plate of food on the table. "Excuse me, but is anyone going to eat that?" he asked quietly.

Xavier looked to Bender. "We were unsure what a robot of your caliber might use for nourishment, so we made an extra plate just in case."

Bender, who had been surprisingly silent up until that point, shrugged. "Well, I can eat it, but it doesn't really go anywhere. I can't even taste it. So, have at it, furball," he said, looking at Kurt, who winced at the name but chirped out a "Thanks," before taking the food.

"Bender! Sorry, sometimes I think someone forgot to install his courtesy chip," Leela apologized.

"Well, I suppose it's time you learned about us," Xavier said. "I think the topic of the future is better left alone for now, for some obvious reasons. I founded this Institute to harbor students who are gifted in ways the present is not prepared to deal with. Here, I teach my students how to handle their powers more skillfully and how to use themselves for good. There are others like us who would rather use their powers for evil, selfish means. That, along with the simple fact that we are different, has created a great deal of prejudice among humans. We are all mutants, who some believe are a step forward in evolution. Each of us has been granted by nature some special power."

"So what's your special power, Leela?" Bender interrupted.

"Yeah. Aren't you glad there are other mutants around even in my day?" Fry asked.

"I wish I had the power to make both of you disappear, sometimes," she muttered under her breath. Everyone was looking at her again. "Yes, I'm a mutant of the future. But only of appearances. Thus the single eye. No super powers. Just the results of radioactive waste's contact with my family." She stared at the floor. It still hurt a little to think about these things, let alone have to talk about them with strangers.

"I see," Xavier said. "Well, there are many things that have come up tonight that will need to be discussed more in the future. However, there is one more concern I have to address, and that is the problem of your ship. We can't just leave it sitting in the forest where anyone can see it. So while you rested in your rooms, I worked on this." He produced from a pocket of his jacket a small black box with a bit of Velcro attached to the back. "It's a holograph inducer, which will seem to make the ship just another clump of trees, to the naked eye. It should be enough to disguise the ship from any who might wander through that bit of forest, until we can find a better solution."

Kurt leapt up from his seat. "I can 'port it over right now, if you'd like, Professor."

"That was just what I had in mind," Xavier smiled, and handed the box to Kurt. The Planet Express group watched in awe as, with a BAMF sound and a puff of smoke, Kurt disappeared. Xavier chuckled. "Yes, that's his power. He's able to teleport himself and any object he touches to other locations. And he's already familiar with holograph projectors, since for obvious reasons he might need to appear more human to be seen in public." As he finished this statement, Kurt reappeared in his chair.

"I looked around the area, Professor, but I didn't see signs that anyone else had been there yet," he reported.

"Thank you," Xavier replied. "Now I propose we all find some rest this evening. I know some of you have some homework to do this weekend," he paused to look at a few X-Men, "and others have simply had a long day," this he addressed to his guests.

Everyone rose and filtered out of the room. Jean politely took the empty plates from Fry and Leela and asked if they needed help finding their rooms again. Fry nodded and followed her out. Leela, however, lingered behind.

"So there is more you would like to discuss?" Xavier asked.

In reply, Leela seated herself again. She couldn't resist finding out more about these so-called mutants. It only seemed natural to be curious about them after so recently finding out she was a breed of mutant herself.

"So these mutants of the future, they have no special abilities or powers?" Xavier asked her.

"No. Hideous deformities that force them to live in the sewer system," Leela pointed ruefully at her eye, "me being the least-deformed mutant ever born, but no super powers."

"Well, we have had dealings before with a group of mutants who lived underground."

"No, our mutations have been caused by generations of radiation and toxic wastes. I believe we're entirely different species, Charles."

"That leads me to wonder what became of our kind in this future of yours. Does our evolution stop? Do our genes simply die out of the pool?"

Would there a widespread movement to exterminate mutantkind? That was the unspoken question hanging in the air. Neither dared to bring it up.

Leela sat back in her chair to think. She couldn't remember anything from her history classes about 21st century mutants. At least, nothing catastrophic. It seemed they might have disappeared, as Xavier had suggested.

One memory came floating forward in her mind. It seemed totally unconnected at first. But in the late 21st century, there had been a substantial group, working independently, who had made an amazing advance in space flight technology. The ship had been developed separate from any country's space program, financed privately and constructed in secret. Its existence had been unknown until just before its flight. And enough information about its construction had been left behind to determine that its engines were fuelled by dark matter. How the group had acquired any of the stuff had been one of the greatest mysteries in history. They had used dark matter over a century before anyone had discovered it on other planets, after using other fuels to visit those planets. No dark matter had ever been discovered to naturally occur on Earth. Which meant that the group must have acquired it from some advanced race that had happened to visit Earth. Or....

Leela's eye widened in horror as she realized the relationship. The only source of dark matter that she was sure had ever been on Earth in the 21st century rested securely within the Planet Express ship. And she had seen how Xavier already had access to amazing technology, for his time period.

It all fell so neatly into place. Somehow, the mutants of the 21st century would obtain dark matter thanks to the Planet Express crew's adventure back in time. Enough to ferry a spaceship far away from Earth with a large group of outcasted people. It made perfect sense that the outcasted group she remembered so faintly be a group of mutants scorned by humans for their special powers. They would search for a new home, all of their own, where their kind could be safe from persecution and thrive.

Would that dream of a new, mutant-populated world come true? She couldn't reliably remember. Some little voice told her _yes_. But she couldn't be sure. She didn't want to feel a hope that might be betrayed by reality later, let alone spread that hope to the people to whom it would matter most. She wondered if the ship's computer would have answers. It had records of hundreds of thousands of planets, surely one of them would be populated by a super powered mutant race that once hailed from planet Earth? She suddenly wanted to check, to have a definite answer to cling to. Then she might know how to proceed in dealing with Xavier and his people.

Then again, she knew how she would deal with them. She would somehow wind up giving them a chunk of dark matter that would allow them at least the chance to survive off-planet.

Or perhaps one of them would steal some.

Damn the trickiness of time travel. Was her course of action set in stone, or did she have the power here and now to change the course of history? Which came first: her past, this present, which created all the developments that would lead to her time; or her present, the future in which a black hole would allow her to create her past?

"Leela, are you all right?"

Xavier's quiet question startled her out of her tormenting thoughts. She sat up straighter in the chair, unsure of what to say to him. Was she supposed to keep his future secret, or reassure him that the mutants would not, after all, be subjected to genocide? Which was the course of action she should take? No, that she would take, had already taken.

"I'm not sure what to tell you, Charles. I have the power to reveal your future, and I don't know whether I should, or can, or am already destined to do. It's a ... very ... delicate situation. I hope you can see that."

"I can see quite clearly how it is. I think, although my curiosity to know is burning me up inside, it is best that we not speak about it any further. For now, you should seek a good night's rest and stop worrying about it. Whatever is meant to happen, will come to be. We only have to find the patience to see what enfolds tomorrow, instead of rushing ahead to the conclusion."

Leela smiled and stood up from the chair. "All right, then. Good night, Charles. Thank you for your hospitality and your wisdom."

After she left the study, she wandered down the hallway, still trying to puzzle out her dilemma. She was distracted by a light from the kitchen and a familiar whistle.

"Bender!" she admonished as she swept into the kitchen. The robot was rooting through the refrigerator, carelessly tossing objects and foodstuffs over his shoulder. Leela stepped forward to grab him when she caught sight of a shadow behind Bender. A reflection of the fridge's light flickered as off of metal, somewhere in the stalking shadow. "Bender!" she cried again, a note of warning in her tone this time.

"What?!" he demanded as he straightened and turned to face her. "I'm just lookin' for some alcohol in this stupid house. You know I need some. Would you believe they don't have any?"

The shadow coalesced into a scowling Logan, knuckle blades at their maximum length. "It's a boarding house for _kids_," he growled. At the sound of his voice, Bender had jumped and screamed. Now he leaned away from the man, staring at the blades. With a soft hiss, they disappeared into Logan's hands.

Leela let out the breath she had been holding to speak. "Bender, we'll go back to the ship tomorrow and find your secret stashes. But first pick up the mess you made!" She looked to Logan. "I apologize for Bender's behavior. He really does run on alcohol, but I never expected him to be so rude as this. I'm sorry if he woke you up or otherwise bothered you."

From his crouched position, Bender's grumbling could be heard. "Stupid humans should know better about robots. We don't get any respect at all. We should just kill all humans. Kill them all!"

Logan looked back and forth between Bender and Leela, then left the room silently.

"You ought to have known better, Bender. And how could you be so rude when they've been so nice to us here?"

"I dunno. Why don't you just shut up and kiss my shiny metal ass?"

Leela sighed and rolled her eye. She turned to go, but stopped when Logan reentered the room. He thrust a six-pack of old-fashioned beer into her arms and jerked his thumb at the robot kneeling on the floor. "For him. Anything so he'll shut up and I can get a decent night's rest. Oh yeah, and you didn't get that from me." He glared at her meaningfully, and she nodded. Then he left again.

Bender finished cleaning up and stood. He brightened up at the sight of the six-pack Leela was holding and grabbed a bottle. He chugged half of it and then suddenly stopped to exclaim, "This tastes like crap!"

"You don't have a sense of taste," Leela sighed.

"Oh. Yeah. Forgot about that." He snatched the rest out of her arms and strode off. Leela shut the refrigerator door and followed. She was suddenly terribly exhausted and her bed sounded wonderful. She had a feeling she would sleep very deeply tonight, despite her strange surroundings.

"You know, it's a good thing I only ever have the clothes on my back," Fry was saying, "because what if I ever wanted to use a closet for storage?"

Bender peeked out of their new room's closet to put on his robotic pretext of a scowl. "You just try putting your crap in my room, skintube. While you're at it, throw your wallet and some booze in too."

Scott had shown them to a room with two beds, unsure about what an intelligent robot's sleeping preferences might be, or even if one slept at all. He had still been too wary around the strangers to bother speaking any more than absolutely necessary, let alone ask questions of a surly machine.

That had been nearly an hour ago. Now Fry sprawled on one of the beds, hands behind his head, while Bender poked around in the closet. He casually plucked out the wooden bar meant to hang clothes upon and tossed it out the window.

Someone knocked on the door and Fry got up to open it, revealing Leela and Jean.

"Hey Fry. Jean says now we're to go downstairs and speak to this Professor Xavier."

"Okay. But I think our guy forgot to show us the bathroom."

Behind Leela, Jean rolled her eyes and made a mental note to speak to Scott later. "It's at the end of the hallway to your right," she spoke up, pointing.

"Ah, thanks."

After waiting for Fry to take care of business at the end of the hall, the group went back downstairs. Jean led them to Xavier's large study. The rest of the team was already seated on various chairs and couches, waiting for them. Each had a plate of food, and four other plates rested on the low central table.

Xavier spoke up. "If you would all have a seat, Ororo has prepared us a wonderful dinner." He gestured to a dark woman with sparkling white hair to his right. After Fry, Leela and Jean had selected plates and seated themselves, he continued. "The reason we are eating here is because there are other students here at my Institute, but I thought it would be best to keep what information is revealed tonight among my most trusted. I find this room a bit more comfortable anyway." He smiled. "Let's start with introductions." He more formally introduced Ororo this time, and continued around the room, gesturing to each resident of his institute. Then he turned his gaze back to the Planet Express crew.

"Well, again, my name is Leela and I captain the Planext Express delivery ship. This is Fry, our delivery boy, and Bender, our ... chef. Umm, before we continue, may I ask what date today is, Mister Xavier?"

"Certainly. But, please, call me Charles. Today is May 23rd, 2003."

Leela took a moment to remember how to breathe. She wondered to herself just how much she could reveal to these people.

Fry elbowed her in the ribs gently. "Hey Leela, you ever notice how time jumps are conveniently a thousand years, or at least back to my time? If I wanted to, I could go visit my family and see how they've been doing the past couple of years."

"No, Fry. You're not going anywhere near your family. I won't allow any more chances for you to inbreed." She looked up at all the faces staring at them and sighed. "As Fry so tactfully brought up, we are from your future, or at least an alternate universe set in the future. To be honest, I don't know which. We got sucked into a black hole while returning from a delivery and wound up here. I didn't even know black holes could allow you to travel back in time. I always thought they just killed you."

There was a long silence that Xavier eventually broke. "Well, that makes our situation much more delicate, doesn't it?"

Leela nodded glumly.

There was another silence, this time broken by Kurt. He pointed to the untouched plate of food on the table. "Excuse me, but is anyone going to eat that?" he asked quietly.

Xavier looked to Bender. "We were unsure what a robot of your caliber might use for nourishment, so we made an extra plate just in case."

Bender, who had been surprisingly silent up until that point, shrugged. "Well, I can eat it, but it doesn't really go anywhere. I can't even taste it. So, have at it, furball," he said, looking at Kurt, who winced at the name but chirped out a "Thanks," before taking the food.

"Bender! Sorry, sometimes I think someone forgot to install his courtesy chip," Leela apologized.

"Well, I would certainly like to know more about all of you, but I suppose it would be difficult for you to say much without revealing the nature of the future. And if it is indeed our future, it's hard to say whether even telling us about it will affect it. We're stuck in quite a paradox."

"We have gone back in time once before, and altered the history of our own universe," Leela offered. "But we found that history tends to mend itself in unexpected ways."

"I think I will leave it to your discretion whether to discuss more of the future or not. I don't believe telling you about yourselves will do any harm, though." Xavier paused in true storyteller fashion before beginning. "I founded this Institute to harbor students who are gifted in ways the present is not prepared to deal with. Here, I teach my students how to handle their powers more skillfully and how to use them for good. There are others like us who would rather use their powers for evil, selfish means. That, along with the simple fact that we are different, has created a great deal of prejudice among humans. We are all mutants, who some believe are a step forward in evolution. Each of us has been granted by nature some special power."

"So what's your special power, Leela?" Bender interrupted.

"Yeah. Aren't you glad there are other mutants around even in my day?" Fry asked.

"I wish I had the power to make both of you disappear, sometimes," she muttered under her breath. Everyone was looking at her again. "Yes, I'm a mutant of the future. I used to think I was just another alien. I mean ... well, there's a tidbit about the future. Extraterrestrial life and lots of it. Anyway, no super powers. Just the eye ... the results of radioactive waste's contact with my family." She stared at the floor. It still hurt a little to think about these things, let alone have to talk about them with strangers.

"I see," Xavier said. "Well, there are many things that have come up tonight that will need to be discussed more in the future. However, there is one more concern I have to address, and that is the problem of your ship. We can't just leave it sitting in the forest where anyone can see it. So while you rested in your rooms, I worked on this." He produced from a pocket of his jacket a small black box with a bit of Velcro attached to the back. "It's a holograph inducer, which will seem to make the ship just another clump of trees, to the naked eye. It should be enough to disguise the ship from any who might wander through that bit of forest, until we can find a better solution."

Kurt leapt up from his seat. "I can 'port it over right now, if you'd like, Professor."

"That's just what I had in mind," Xavier smiled, and handed the box to Kurt. The Planet Express group watched in awe as, with a BAMF sound and a puff of smoke, Kurt disappeared. Xavier chuckled. "Yes, that's his power. He's able to teleport himself and any object he touches to other locations. And he's already familiar with holograph projectors, since for obvious reasons he might need to appear more human to be seen in public." As he finished this statement, Kurt reappeared in his chair.

"I looked around the area, Professor, but I didn't see signs that anyone else had been there yet," he reported.

"Thank you," Xavier replied. "Now I propose we all find some rest this evening. I know some of you have some homework to do this weekend," he paused to look at a few X-Men, "and others have simply had a long day," this he addressed to his guests.

Everyone rose and filtered out of the room. Jean politely took the empty plates from Fry and Leela and asked if they needed help finding their rooms again. Fry nodded and followed her out. Leela, however, lingered behind.

"So there is more you would like to discuss?" Xavier asked.

In reply, Leela seated herself again. She couldn't resist finding out more about these so-called mutants. It only seemed natural to be curious about them after so recently finding out she was a breed of mutant herself.

"So these mutants of the future, they have no special abilities or powers?" Xavier asked her.

"No. Hideous deformities that force them to live in the sewer system," Leela pointed ruefully at her eye, "me being the least-deformed mutant ever born."

"Well, we have had dealings before with a group of mutants who lived underground."

"No, our mutations have been caused by generations of radiation and toxic wastes. I believe we're entirely different breeds, Charles."

"That leads me to wonder what became of our kind in this future of yours. Does our evolution stop? Do our genes simply die out of the pool?"

Would there be a widespread and successful movement to exterminate mutantkind? That was the unspoken question hanging in the air. Neither dared to bring it up.

Leela sat back in her chair to think. She couldn't remember anything from her history classes about 21st century mutants. At least, nothing catastrophic. It seemed they might have disappeared, as Xavier had suggested.

One memory came floating forward in her mind. It seemed totally unconnected at first. But in the late 21st century, there had been a substantial group, working independently, who had made an amazing advance in space flight technology. The ship had been developed separate from any country's space program, financed privately and constructed in secret. Its existence had been unknown until just before its flight. And enough information about its construction had been left behind to determine that its engines were fuelled by dark matter. How the group had acquired any of the stuff had been one of the greatest mysteries in history. They had used dark matter over a century before it had been discovered. And dark matter had only been found to exist in other solar systems. No dark matter had ever been discovered to naturally occur on Earth. Which meant that the group must have acquired it from some advanced race that had happened to visit Earth. Or....

Leela's eye widened in horror as she realized the relationship. The only source of dark matter that she was sure had ever been on Earth in the 21st century rested securely within the Planet Express ship. And she had seen how Xavier already had access to amazing technology, for his time period.

It all fell so neatly into place. Somehow, the mutants of the 21st century would obtain dark matter thanks to the Planet Express crew's adventure back in time. Enough to ferry a spaceship far away from Earth with a large group of outcasted people. It made perfect sense that the outcasted group she remembered so faintly might be a group of mutants scorned by humans for their special powers. They would search for a new home where their kind could be safe from persecution.

Would that dream of a new, mutant-populated world come true? She couldn't reliably remember. Some little voice told her _yes_. But she couldn't be sure. She didn't want to feel a hope that might be betrayed by reality later, let alone spread that hope to the people to whom it would matter most. She wondered if the ship's computer would have answers. It had records of hundreds of thousands of planets, surely one of them would be populated by a super powered mutant race that once hailed from planet Earth? She suddenly wanted to check, to have a definite answer to cling to. Then she might know how to proceed in dealing with Xavier and his people.

Then again, she knew how she would deal with them. She would somehow wind up giving them a chunk of dark matter that would allow them at least the chance to survive off-planet.

Or perhaps one of them would steal some.

Damn the trickiness of time travel. Was her course of action set in stone, or did she have the power here and now to change the course of history? Which came first: her past, this present, which created all the developments that would lead to her time; or her present, the future in which a black hole would allow her to create her past?

"Leela, are you all right?"

Xavier's quiet question startled her out of her tormenting thoughts. She sat up straighter in the chair, unsure of what to say to him. Was she supposed to keep his future secret, or reassure him that the mutants would not, after all, be subjected to genocide? Which was the course of action she should take? No, that she _would_ take, had already taken.

"I'm not sure what to tell you, Charles. I have the power to reveal your future, and I don't know whether I should, or can, or am already destined to. It's a ... very ... delicate situation. I hope you can see that."

"I can see quite clearly how it is. Although my curiosity to know is burning me up inside, I think it is best that we not speak about it any further. For now, you should seek a good night's rest and stop worrying about it. Whatever is meant to happen, will come to be. We only have to find the patience to see what comes tomorrow."

Leela smiled and stood up from the chair. "All right, then. Good night, Charles. Thank you for your hospitality and your wisdom."

After she left the study, she wandered down the hallway, still trying to puzzle out her dilemma. She was distracted by a light from the kitchen and a familiar whistle.

"Bender!" she admonished as she swept into the kitchen. The robot was rooting through the refrigerator, carelessly tossing objects and foodstuffs over his shoulder. Leela stepped forward to grab him when she caught sight of a shadow behind Bender. A reflection of the fridge's light flickered as off metal, somewhere in the stalking shadow. "Bender!" she cried again, a note of warning in her tone this time.

"What?!" he demanded as he straightened and turned to face her. "I'm just lookin' for some alcohol in this stupid house. You know I need some. Would you believe they don't have any?"

The shadow coalesced into a scowling Logan, knuckle blades at their maximum length. "It's a boarding house for _kids_," he growled. At the sound of his voice, Bender had jumped and screamed. Now he leaned away from the man, staring at the blades. With a soft hiss, they disappeared into Logan's hands.

Leela let out the breath she had been holding. "Bender, we'll go back to the ship tomorrow and find your secret stashes. But first pick up the mess you made!" She looked to Logan. "I apologize for Bender's behavior. He really does run on alcohol, but I never expected him to be so rude. I'm sorry if he woke you up or otherwise bothered you."

From his crouched position, Bender's grumbling could be heard. "Stupid humans should know better about robots. We don't get any respect at all. We should just kill all humans. Kill them all!"

Logan looked back and forth between Bender and Leela, then left the room silently.

"You ought to have known better, Bender. And how could you be so rude when they've been so nice to us here?"

"I dunno. Why don't you just shut up and kiss my shiny metal ass?"

Leela sighed and rolled her eye. She turned to go, but stopped when Logan reentered the room. He thrust a six-pack of beer into her arms and jerked his thumb at the robot kneeling on the floor. "For him. Anything so he'll shut up and I can get a decent night's rest. Oh yeah, and you didn't get that from me." He glared at her meaningfully, and she nodded. Then he left again.

Bender finished cleaning up and stood. He brightened up at the sight of the six-pack Leela was holding and grabbed a bottle. He chugged half of it and then suddenly stopped to exclaim, "This tastes like crap!"

"You don't have a sense of taste," Leela sighed.

"Oh. Yeah. Forgot about that." He snatched the rest out of her arms and strode off. Leela shut the refrigerator door and followed. She was suddenly terribly exhausted and bed sounded wonderful. She had a feeling she would sleep very deeply tonight, despite her strange surroundings.


	4. Part 4: Discovery

Many thanks to those who have enjoyed my crazy idea and have reviewed to say so. =)

-----

Pale fingers of golden and pink light reached through the dark shadows of trees to glint off of metal and plastic armor. The unusually colorful dawn might have been considered something beautiful if any of the four boys wandering in the forest cared enough to look. As it was, three of them were irritable at having to be awake so early. The fourth was annoyed with the other three for, well, just being themselves.

"I told you," he was insisting, "I really saw something around here yesterday. We just need to keep looking."

A taller, darker young man finished his deep yawn. "We're looking, Pietro, we're looking," he said condescendingly.

"Maybe if you guys had come with me to look _yesterday_, you would believe me."

"Well, we're here _now_. So shut up and find this thing for us." Lance watched the white-haired Pietro streak off into the gloom and decided that sometimes it wasn't worth it to be the leader of a group. At least not when it meant dealing with such a spoiled, whiny brat, who was probably making the whole thing up just to get the other two angry at him, Lance, for making them wake up early to go on this wild goose chase. He turned to brush some dried pine needles off of a shoulder. A sparkle in the dark nearby caught his eye. One of the trees seemed a little _shinier_ than the others nearby, if that was possible. It almost looked a bit like plastic, where the ray of light had struck it.

Lance approached the tree and peered closely. A small, black box was attached to the tree, directly in a beam of light. The reflection was what had caught his attention. But why would a box like this be attached to a tree? He ran a finger over it until he felt a small button. He paused, on the verge of pressing it. Suddenly he leapt backward a little in fright at a loud voice directly behind him.

"Wha-ja find?"

He glared over his shoulder at Todd, who was staring up at him intently from his crouch on the ground. "I don't know. I'm about to find out."

"Oh, well lemme see!" Todd leapt over Lance's head, aiming to land gripping the tree, facing down at the box, Lance supposed. But that never happened. Todd's body struck the tree with an odd metallic clang and he slid to the forest floor. Lance hardly noticed that though. A tree didn't go _clang_ when you hit it. He reached out a hand to the tree and felt its smooth, cool surface. He trailed his hand to the right, where, instead of curving away like a tree trunk should, the surface continued straight into empty air. Odd.

Todd had shaken the dazed expression from his face and was peering up at the little box. "I seen somethin' like that before. It's like that thing that one X-Man wears to school." He straightened up enough to touch it. "You just gotta push this button here and--"

They both staggered back when a patch of the forest flickered away to reveal a hulking green metallic wall. As they backed up, it began to take on a vague rocket-like shape, although it wasn't like any rocket made on Earth that they knew of.

"I think we found whatever Pietro was talkin' about," Todd finally said. Then he yelled into the forest, "Hey guys! Come over here!"

-----

The sun had shed its rising colors, but it was still very early when a larger group of people set out into the forest on a mission. The Planet Express crew was listening to jokes and tales as told by Kurt and Kitty, who were competing to be the most impressive storyteller. Well, Leela and Fry were paying attention to the stories. Bender was daydreaming about the secret stashes of alcohol and porn stowed away on the ship.

When the earth beneath their feet trembled and groaned, the X-Men all turned to look at each other. "The Brotherhood," Scott spoke aloud for them all.

"Huh? Since when do earthquakes have families?"

But no one answered Fry's stupid question, because they were all running forward. Leela shrugged and followed the X-Men. Fry and Bender decided it was better to run than to be stranded in the woods.

When they all reached the ship, Toad was just leaping out of the doorway clutching a boxy package to his chest. He snickered and said to himself, "All right. Who said aliens only abducted drunk people? This proves they just make them drunk to cover it all up. I smell a conspiracy. But the government's just gonna have to wait for me to try some of this myself." He set the object on the ground carefully.

"My beer!" Bender shouted. "He's got my beer, the little bastard!" He tore out of the cover of the trees in a rage. Toad was so terrified at the strange sight of a bloodthirsty robot that he froze where he cowered. Jean took the opportunity to lift him into the air, immobile, and luckily for him, out of Bender's murderous reach. Instead, the robot clutched the package of alcohol to his chest. Around him, the rest of the X-Men poured into the clearing to seek out and subdue the rest of the Brotherhood.

On the other side of the ship, Fred, the Blob, had been dragging something heavy through the trees. At the commotion, he had been thankful to let his burden drop into the undergrowth, where it settled into a hollow beneath a leafy bush. Wiping sweat from his forehead, he went to see what the noise was all about. When he rounded the edge of the ship, he looked down to see an odd-looking woman. She was actually kind of pretty, he thought, even if she had purple hair and ... wait, what kind of woman only had one gigantic eye in the middle of her forehead? He stopped in surprise and looked down into that very angry eye.

Leela took the opportunity to leap into the air and direct a spinning kick to Blob's face. He grunted in pain where she had struck him in the temple, but it didn't seem to faze him much. She began punching his generous gut. She was trying vainly to make some impression when he reached out large hands to pin her arms to her sides and lift her in the air. She struggled and kicked as hard as she could, but it didn't seem to be doing much good.

Suddenly a bright red beam like that of a large laser gun erupted from over her shoulder and struck Blob in the face. He staggered back and dropped her, where she tucked and rolled away, to spring back to an alert pose.

"That won't do you much good on him." Leela turned to see Scott crouched behind her. He smiled, "You should leave him to us."

She gave a soft snort. Like she would give up protecting her ship from a foe because some male thought she was too weak to handle the situation. The kid just didn't know anything. Then she saw the laser beam shoot out of that ridiculous thing he wore over his eyes. Okay, maybe he was a little better equipped for this situation than she. Of course, if she had a laser gun on her, she'd show him. That reminded her of the ship and she decided to leave the battle to Scott – just this once.

As she rounded the hull of the ship again, Jean passed her on her way to help subdue Fred. Both women stumbled as the ground buckled beneath them. Leela saw a tall, dark-haired boy ahead with his eyes rolled back to show only their whites. A petite brunette girl rushed forward to him, shouting for him to stop. It dawned on Leela that perhaps he was the cause of the ground shuddering beneath her feet. Another of those mutant power things, she supposed. Well, that was easy enough to put a stop to. She flew at him, foot snapping out to hit him solidly between the shoulder blades. He dropped like a stone and the earth stilled.

The girl dropped to her knees next to the fallen boy. She was one of Xavier's, Leela remembered. But it seemed like these boys were enemies of the Xavier students. Leela was a bit confused but decided to ask questions later. She left the kids to check on the condition of her ship. Charles had said it would be protected from ignorant teenagers like this....

The other two members of the Brotherhood were subdued. Toad was still cowering out of reach of Bender, who was drinking one of his beers and clutching his stack of rescued porn to his chest. Pietro's legs were pinwheeling uselessly as he dangled from the huge hands of the mutant who had been introduced as Dr. Hank McCoy. One of the ship's laser guns lay at his feet. Hank noticed Leela's gaze fall on it.

"Unfortunately, this young man managed to find that and Kitty disabled it to prevent him from doing any damage. Her phasing tends to destroy electronics permanently, however, so we apologize for the loss of your weapon."

"As long as no one got hurt," Leela replied. She climbed up the stairs leading into the ship to see what else the boys hand gotten into. The insides of the ship were already a mess from the crash, so it was hard to say what destruction they had caused. At least they had found only one of the laser guns on board. One of the lockers must have broken open in the impact, she guessed, and decided it was the best time to find the other two so that they wouldn't fall into the wrong hands as well.

As she walked through the tilted corridor to the locker room, she noticed the door to the engines was propped open with a small black object. Crouching down, she saw it was a broken chunk of dark matter. A few whole pieces were scattered through the hallway, but not the other half of that particular piece. She wondered how this ball had managed to break when all the others were still intact, and when the stuff was so incredibly dense ... and where the rest was. Those four boys couldn't have known what it was. They couldn't have _moved_ it if they did. She needed all the robotic strength of Bender to move even small pieces. It just must have broken in the crash somehow and the other shards had scattered, were buried under the other loose junk littering the ship. Yes, that must be it.

Straightening, she continued to the locker room to gather the weapons and to investigate for further damage to the ship.


End file.
